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The Unsolved Murder of Virginia Olson in North Carolina
The University of North Carolina at Asheville will always have a special place in my heart, because it was at that small college that I came into my own as a journalist. The small class sizes afforded me the ability to work closely with other students and talented professors who wanted me to succeed. For three years I worked on the campus newspaper, The Blue Banner, honing my reporting skills, interviewing students and administrators, working late nights at the office with only my jumbled notes and a miniature coffeepot to keep me company. I eventually became the features editor and then the news editor, assigning stories to reporters and perfecting my copy editing…
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Did Jeffrey MacDonald Murder His Family?
One of the most intriguing cases from North Carolina involves a man named Jeffrey MacDonald. MacDonald had attended Princeton University on a scholarship and then Northwestern University for medical school. He married his high school sweetheart, a woman named Collette Stevenson, before becoming a surgeon in the 6th Special Forces Group in the United States Army stationed at Fort Bragg in 1969. On the night of February 17, 1970, MacDonald, who was 26 at the time, awakened to a real-life nightmare. As he later told the military police, around 2 or 3 a.m., he woke up from where he was sleeping on the living room couch to the sound of screams. There, he…
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Season 2 of “The Summer I Turned Pretty” Vs. the Book
This post contains spoilers for both the second season of “The Summer I Turned Pretty” and the books the show is based on. Having recently binged both seasons of the Amazon Prime series “The Summer I Turned Pretty” and the books that inspired it, I wanted to share my thoughts on how the second season was different from book, “It’s Not Summer Without You.” While the first season of the show ended with Conrad declaring his feelings for Belly and kissing her on the beach, the second season begins with Belly admitting Susannah has died and she and Conrad are no longer together. While “The Summer I Turned Pretty” is only told from…
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Season 1 of “The Summer I Turned Pretty” Vs. the Book
This post contains spoilers for both the second season of “The Summer I Turned Pretty” and the books the show is based on. I’ll admit it. I got sucked into watching “The Summer I Turned Pretty” on Amazon Prime when I saw multiple online discussions about it. I kept seeing references to the love triangle between Isabel “Belly” Conklin and brothers Jeremiah and Conrad Fisher reminding people of the ones on “The Vampire Diaries” and “Twilight” so of course I was intrigued. Fortunately for me, by the time I watched it, Season 2 had already been released so I could binge to my heart’s content. But wait! The series was based on a…
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Book Review: I Chose You by Carmen Leal
Book Summary For every pet parent who knows there’s no such thing as ‘just a dog,’ this collection of uplifting glimpses into the lives of ordinary-turned-extraordinary dogs and the people who love them is a tail-wagging good read. Thanks to the rescue dog who saved her life after a traumatic brain injury, Carmen Leal went from saying she’d never have a dog to becoming an advocate for man’s best friend. Carmen volunteered at the local rescue shelter by writing bios and social media posts, applying for grants, and helping to save and re-home over 6,500 dogs from a high-kill shelter. This endearing anthology includes stories that celebrate the bond between canines and humans…
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Confessions of a “Free Spirit” Writer
Financial expert Dave Ramsey has a philosophy that people have different personality types when it comes to managing money. “Nerds” are the ones who like creating a financial budget, sticking to it, and keeping a close eye on the finances because it gives them a sense of security. “Free spirits” don’t like to be constrained by the budget and have more of a “I want to live life to the fullest—we’ll figure out how to make more money!” attitude. In our house, my husband is definitely the nerd most of the time with our finances and I’m more the free spirit. He’s always had a practical approach to money although he does have…
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Ghosts of Davidson is a Tour Steeped in History
This article originally ran in Lake Norman CURRENTS. As a true crime fan and person who is intrigued by ghost tours, I love checking them out whenever I’m traveling. Several years ago, I got the chance to stay at the Omni Grove Park Inn, where the mysterious story of “The Pink Lady” is shared by the staff. I’ve also taken ghost tours in Asheville and in Charleston, S.C., where I’m pretty sure I captured some paranormal activity in one photo of a church. The LKN area is also home to rich history, so when I heard about Ghosts of Davidson, I reached out to the student who owns the tour company to learn…
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What Happened to Angela Hamby of Wilkesboro, N.C.?
What happened to a young woman named Angela Hamby, who went missing from Wilkesboro, North Carolina on October 29, 1982, remains a mystery. By all accounts, Angela was a homebody. She had graduated from West Wilkes High School in 1980, and was living at home with her parents and working at a job in data processing at the local NCNB Bank. She was also enrolled at Wilkes Community College, with the hopes of eventually transferring to Appalachian State University. On the day she went missing, Angela had errands planned for the morning, and then she and her mother and sister were going to drive to nearby Elkin to do some shopping. She left…
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A Purposeful Life
This editor’s letter appears in the March 2022 issue of Lake Norman CURRENTS. In early January, the community of Lake Norman learned of the passing of Tom Clark, a Davidson College professor who eventually found his life’s calling working in sculpture. While planning an article on his work, we put a call out on our social media pages asking if anyone had a collection of the miniature gnomes he grew so famous for creating. We were overwhelmed by the responses of so many people, not only of those who still have his gnome sculptures in their homes but also those who had a personal connection to Clark or a memory of what his…
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The Murder of Nikki McPhatter
Nikki McPhatter’s story caught my attention after seeing it featured on the Investigation Discovery show “Web of Lies.” She was a 30-year-old woman working in Charlotte at the time of her disappearance. A goal-oriented person who always seemed to know what that next step was, she joined the Navy shortly after graduating from high school. After her time in the military, she took a job as a ticket agent for U.S. Airways at the Charlotte Douglas International Airport. She was an adventurous young woman who, according to her older sister LaToya, also enjoyed skydiving in her downtime. She turned to online dating hoping to find companionship. It was on a website called Tagged.com…
